Capstone Course Description
The capstone experience encourages English students to reflect on their program and determine how the knowledge gained therein can aid their professional goals. All the obligatory edu-speak (including schematized assessment guidelines) is on our official MSU syllabus.
Reading List (in order)
The reading schedule is outlined in the MSU syllabus, which includes a brief description of class assignments. For a fuller overview of the course’s work, click on the “Assignments” link. General information on rubrics can be accessed via the button below. Specific rubrics are linked on assignment sheets.
- Auyoung: “What We Mean By Reading“
- Plato “Ion”
- Arnold: “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time”
- Euripides: Bacchae
- Nietzsche: The Birth of Tragedy (selections)
- Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus
- Süskind: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
- Woolf: “How Should One Read a Book?“
- Felski: Hooked: Art and Attachment (selections)
- Miscellaneous popular articles on the state of the profession
***a theoretical intermission***
Because we will be striving for transcendence from (professional) pessimism and nihilism in ENG 499c, we’ll be using selections from Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy to help us explore the “eternal recurrence” of “divine frenzy” in our capstone experience.
And because it’s always time to play the music and light the lights, let’s raise the curtain on such transcendence with the Muppets on this site:
(a.k.a. the felt reverence of “Ecce Henson”)
Helga's Hub 